IOP Journal #5

So I have finally finished editing and practicing my IOP for the night. I know I will run through it at least twice more tomorrow while at school. I am incredibly nervous for this presentation. I know I have good content for my presentation, and excellent analysis, but I fear that I will be lacking some eye contact tomorrow. I will depend on my notes for my presentation because I do not want to skip an important piece to the analysis. I will practice the eye contact portion of my presentation more tomorrow morning. As for now I will sleep and hope that everything goes well tomorrow! I'm so excited to finally be done with this assignment.

IOP Journal #4

So I have finally finished writing my IOP. I now need to edit it and practice. Compared to the beginning of this project, I now feel somewhat comfortable with my topic. I am not however comfortable with presenting it... yet. The rest of the night as of 9PM right now, is dedicated to first editing my work, and practicing. It's probably going to be a long night, but it will be worth it. I cannot believe that by 11AM tomorrow, I will be done with this! Time has flown by very quickly in terms of the IOP. I will post again once I am all prepared for this.

IOP Journal #3

So the anxiety is really kicking in now. I present my IOP tomorrow. I have dedicated the rest of my night to finishing and perfecting my presentation. I have ultimately decided that it will just be a standard speech. There is no need to have the quotes shown with a Powerpoint if people are already listening to me, it is just unnecessary. I am now in the stage of collecting the final quotes for the presentation. I have found some excellent quotes that I am excited to analyze tomorrow in class. It amazes me how a six word sentence can contain so much information! This presentation still needs a lot of work to reach the level of perfection, but this night is dedicated to hopefully reaching that level. Off to find more quotes!

IOP Journal #2

This day has been dedicated to my IOP. As I re read deeper into Their Eyes Were Watching God, I get a more stable sense of my presentation. As I spend time working on the IOP, my anxiety decreases, which is a very good thing. This past hour I have been focusing on the organization of my presentation. Here is the general format:

- Introduction & Thesis (approximately 1 minute)

- Brief Summary (approximately 1 minute)

- Specific Relationships: Janie & Logan, Janie & Joe, Janie & Tea Cake (Each relationship about 2-3 minutes)

- Conclusion: summarize Janie's growth into equality from relationships & restate thesis (about 1 minute)

I have aimed for my presentation to be more geared toward the ten minute mark, simply to avoid boring the class. I see many students falling asleep as it is, do not want to cause more sleepiness. With my IOP planned out as this, it will probably be at the most twelve minutes, and at the least, ten. During this time I will effectively and precisely get to my points, with no fishing around.

IOP Journal #1

So today is the day where I begin to hit my IOP hard (metaphorically speaking, of course). These past few days have been full of me re reading Their Eyes Were Watching God and attacking the novel with many post-it notes. I have been strongly focusing on the main idea of my IOP: the relationships within the novel and how Janie grows to equality throughout them. I have a few ideas of how I want to present this to the class. A Powerpoint was one of them, but since almost everybody seems to be doing this, I might have to avoid this idea. Another idea that I have is simply giving a speech, then bringing in a few pictures which express the different aspects of Janie's relationships. I will continue to think of other ideas as I collect my points.

Blood Wedding Journal #3

"Not rounding off, but opening out." Comment upon the way the writers deal with the ending in relation to the whole.

This statement needs to be taken into consideration when looking at the plays studied, especially in Oedipus and Blood Wedding. Rounding off is giving the book or play a definite ending, with a resolved issue. However, in contrast, opening out is giving the play an open ending which also gives the reader and audience something to ponder. Authors choose to do either of these things while deciding how to end their piece of literature. The difference is whether to let the audience use their imagination to the meaning of the author's piece of work, or to portray an exact meaning in the work. Oedipus however, can be debated as to whether it has an open ending or not. Many say the resolution is that Oedipus blinds himself, and that is how the problem is solved. In opposition to the resolved ending, some say that the ending is open, because the question of Oedipus being exiled is still present. In Blood Wedding, it is certainly open ended. The "end" of the story is just that the bride runs off with Leonardo and therefore her marriage is canceled, and broken. The readers are free to interpret this play as they wish, and are left with many questions. There are many unresolved issues between the characters and what is going to happen next to the characters. However, the way a writer chooses to end his or her work, plays a role in how the work is interpreted by others.

Blood Wedding Journal #2

A dramatist often creates a gap between what the audience knows and what the characters know. With reference to at least two plays, discuss how and to what effect dramatists have used this technique.

Dramatists, especially Sophocles and Lorca, use dramatic irony to create a gap between what the audience knows and what the characters know. The audience usually knows the entire story, with secrets and all, while the individual characters only know certain parts of the story. This happens in both Oedipus and Blood Wedding. With Oedipus being a fairly popular tragedy, many know the story already while seeing the play. This creates dramatic irony because the audience knows the outcome and the truth while Oedipus is still on the journey to find the truth. This is this gap created between the two groups of people. In Blood Wedding some characters know part of the truth, and others do not. Obvious the bride knows the truth, that her and Leonardo still want each other, and have seen each other in the past. On the other hand, the Bridegroom does not know this. During the play however, the audience knows everything with seeing all of the scenes. It creates dramatic irony and that gap again with the audience knowing something that the characters do not know.